Despite historic improvements in Baltimore City’s public schools, Mayor Sheila Dixon said she still wants to take control of the system and her staff is “analyzing” the issue.
“It’s a partnership,” she said of the school system. “I’m not going to say in ’09 I’m going to do it on this date. We’re looking at the pros and cons.”
Dixon first made public last summer her interest in joining mayors of major cities throughout the country by taking over the city schools.
City schools last school year massive jumps on the Maryland School Assessment and High School Assessment, the standardized tests that measure students’ performance under the No Child Left Behind law.
But as crime has decreased drastically, from nearly 300 homicides last year to fewer than 240 this year, hopes for the city have improved.
But the one major factor to luring more residents to the city that the mayor does not have direct authority over is the quality of the school system.
A mayoral school system takeover would replace the current model in which Chief Executive Officer Andres Alonso answers to the school board, which includes nine voting members jointly appointed by the mayor and governor.
The New York City school system, the country’s largest, has shown significant improvements since Mayor Michael Bloomberg assumed control in 2002.
Such successful takeovers have spurred others, including Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s takover of his city’s schools in 2007.
Alonso, who served as deputy chancellor in New York, had been head of Baltimore’s schools for about a year when Dixon first expressed interest in taking over the system.
He has said that he is less worried about to whom he answers than whether students will continue to grow. He has praised Dixon for working with the school system as a “partner.”
Another Dixon initiative — a longer school day — will have to be put on the back-burner due to the economy, she said. “I would love to do that,” she said of lengthening the school day. “With the budget constraints coming into the school system, can we do that?” [email protected]
